Baby, it's bloody freezing outside. This time of year, I find I have the urge to buy a bunch of sweaters. (Thanks to H&M, I can do this without plunging into debt.) I do not, however, have the urge to buy scarves and hats. This is because I enjoy knitting my own so much more, and I predict many happy hours curled up knitting this winter after I finish classes. I hardly knitted a stitch from about March until October, but now I'm back in full swing. I've been scouring websites for designs and have come up with a few of my own - still in the abstract realm, I'm afraid, so no pictures - based on what I see in stores and wrapped around people's heads and necks. I've drawn some chilly glances from fellow subway riders when they catch me staring at them, trying to figure out how to replicate that diamond pattern on their scarf or that fetching alternating stripe that zig zags down the side of a hat. I wonder if my health insurance covers subterranean fist fights...
So far, I've got just two completed projects to show off. First, in need of a simple scarf that I could wear with anything, I did this one in a seed stitch, which is one I've been wanting to try for a while. It was very simple to do, obviously, and required very little concentration on my part. No pattern necessary here, I just dove into it.
Detail of the seed stitch, and my super-cool tassels
I'm rather proud of this next one, which I finished just tonight. It was my first attempt at lace. I made tons of mistakes - one has to be very attentive when knitting a lace pattern and I mostly wasn't - but by a happy accident I bought yarn that was slightly too thick for the needles I used, which yielded tighter stitches which are harder to see clearly. In other words, even I can't tell where I messed up, but I assure you, there are many, many places. I love the way it turned out, but doing it was a bit of a pain because I had to refer to the pattern, which I found online, constantly the entire time I was working on it. I never managed to memorize it, even after repeating it 20-something times. So I couldn't do it while watching a movie or even talking on the phone because I needed to keep track of where I was. Still, I think the result is well worth it. I'm working on a matching hat now.
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